H and I were recently in Bangkok for a weekend. We decided not to be too ambitious so we took it slow, ticking off places we've always wanted to check out. One of such places was Karmakamet Diner.

The interior of the restaurant was heaven. There was obviously a lot of thought and effort put into designing the place, I was so in love with it! We spent as much time eating as we were taking photos.

There were too many dishes on the menu that sound totally yummy and we had a tough time deciding what to order - good problem to have though! In the end we settled for the duck confit salad, the uni (sea urchin) and ikura (salmon roe) pasta and of course, the"Strawberry Dreams" which is the iconic candy floss dessert. Of all the dishes, I'd have to say the pasta was the BEST. At 990baht (~S$40), the portion was a little small but they were generous with the ingredients. Ahhh, what I'd do to eat this again! Underneath that giant candy floss is actually a cup of strawberry shortcake which was pretty good though we got bored of the sugar floss after a few mouthfuls. Lastly, skip the duck confit salad - the skin wasn't crispy and the meat was overcooked.

If you still have time so spare after the meal, do check out the Aromatherapy Shop that's connected to the diner. I went crazy happy in there testing the different scents available. I fell in love with the light fragrance of "Mimosa" so I had to get the diffuser, room spray and hand cream! :D

Karmakamet Diner
30/1 Sukhumvit Soi 24 Bangkok
Tel: 02 262 0700 1
Daily: 10am – 11pm
Nearest BTS: Phrom Phong

The Making of Portuguese Codfish Cakes

I love weekends like today, just resting at home and not doing anything in particular. Okay, maybe just being addicted to the Nat Geo People channel. Now, I just wanna go Italy and eat pastas everyday, cook extremely good-looking, colourful and healthy meals, as well as head to Australia to learn surfing.

Aaaaahhhhh, the world is so huge and amazing, it is such a pity that most or 99% of us will never be able to travel to ALL the cities on Earth in a lifetime.

So H and I decided to bring Portugal to our home tonight. We finally got down to trying a new recipe - Portuguese Codfish Cakes.

We tried it for the first time on our last trip to Macau in July and fell craaaazzzyyyy in love with this dish. I enjoyed it so much I googled for its recipe the moment I got back to Singapore 'cause I felt like I needed to eat it again right away haha. The ingredients are actually very simple and easy to find except for the dry salted codfish which isn't readily available on our island. And then I chanced upon it at Huber's Butchery located at Dempsey! *throws confetti* Otherwise, head to Fassler at Woodlands to get it! ;)

This is the recipe I followed but I amended the ingredients a little because we didn't have parsley and we weren't gonna cook for that many people. So we used:

- 2 large Russet potatoes (probably 450g)
- 1 piece of dried codfish (probably 350g)
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 egg
- 1/2 onion
- 1/2 teaspoon salt

Which was still too much for 2 persons so we only used half of it and froze the other half for next week!

We soaked the dried codfish overnight for 18 hours and had a change of water once in the morning. It would be ideal to change the water twice in the day as it still tasted a little too salty for us.

Boil until super soft so it'll be easy to mash!

Put the codfish in room temperature water and bring to a boil. When the water has boiled, it is a good gauge the codfish is cooked.

Our blender decided not to work so H used 2 knives and chopped the codfish, onion and garlic into extremely fine bits and our mashed potato is ready!

After mixing everything together with an egg.

Sorry my quenelles don't look very authentic hahaha.

Anyway, I think our codfish cakes are a little over fried because the colour is supposed to be a beautiful orange instead of brown like ours lol (refer to the recipe link above!).

And dinner is served :)

My favourite aglio olio style pasta with broccoli and hot & spicy sausage!

YUMMEH!
I can see us making this again and again and again because they are so easy to cook and make a good snack. Yay to a successful first attempt!

On My Birthday...

I am officially in my late twenties + one month T_T

It is not so much about growing older... It's more of having to conform to society's requirements of what I am supposed to achieve at this age and then realise I'm nowhere near. 

I have no idea why I'm not that big on birthday celebrations especially when my parents held birthday parties for my siblings and I when we were young. There was always a huge cake, nuggets, hot dogs, frozen fries and a table full of food. Funny how I don't care for birthday presents nor celebrate extravagantly on my birthdays when I'm all grown up. Probably because I don't need an occasion to eat cakes haha. As long as the day is filled with delicious food, I'm contented.

So anyway, the 25th of July fell on a Saturday this year and I had brunch at Artistry with my girlfriends! Food wasn't too bad overall, the best was probably the french toast.

The girls and I hung out a little more after brunch till it was time for me to head home to prepare for dinner with H. H made a reservation at L'Atelier Joel Robuchon @ RWS and we were both reallyyyyyy excited to dine there ever since that super awesome lunch we had at Joel Robuchon Tokyo exactly 3 years ago on my birthday too! We rarely splurge and indulge ourselves in such an expensive meal, probably once a year, so it was well-deserved! 

I believe the restaurant bakes the bread in-house. I really enjoyed the croissants and sundried tomato ones!

H and I both ordered the Discovery Menu so we each had about 10 courses. There were some hits and misses but the thing about fine dining is, it doesn't matter what you serve me because I will finish everything even though I don't normally eat that certain food. For example, artichoke. Everything on the plate just tastes yummy I don't know why?!

This was probably my favourite for the night! Sea bream with caviar! I couldn't figure out what was that green web vegetable looking thing but it was awesome.

Said artichoke. Tempura style and it was aahhhmazinggg

OMG. FOIE GRAS. OMG.

Dessert was incredibly yummy. I especially love the chocolate dome!

Lemon madeleine to go with coffee/tea. This is definitely one of the best madeleines I've ever had, loved the subtle lemon flavour in it!

Anyway, I didn't mention or post pictures of our main dishes (quail for me, beef for H) because they weren't exactly fantastic and we did not enjoy them at all. Everything else was good though!

And that was how I spent my day! :D

Our Housewarming Party

On the first Saturday of July, H and I had a small housewarming party and invited around 30 friends over. We had our food catered from Neo Garden Catering and a dessert table by Creme Maison Bakery. There was too much food and everything was delicious!! In between entertaining our guests, I was stuffing myself silly because everyone came up to me and told me they like so-and-so dish or such-and-such dessert. Of course I had to give them all a try for myself! In a nutshell, I lost count of how much I've eaten that afternoon haha.

We had a total of 11 dishes which included:

- Thai Pineapple Fried Rice

- Sweet and Sour Fish

- Wasabi Prawn Ball

- Signature Curry Chicken

- Mushroom Broccoli

- Chicken and Mutton Satay

- Breaded Scallops

- Mini Chocolate Eclairs

- Honeydew Sago

- Lychee (Cordial Drink)

- Nonya Laksa DIY Station

Opted for the wasabi prawn ball (not spicy by the way) instead of the cereal prawns 'cause I didn't think the guests would want to peel prawns at a housewarming party and these didn't disappoint. Ebiko never goes wrong ;)

The Pineapple Fried Rice was damnnnnn good by the way! I loved it so much I had two servings...with the absolutely yummy curry sauce. YUMS

Our friends loved the satays so much they were completely wiped out (one of them even dabao-ed the few sticks left)!

These bite-sized chocolate eclairs were a joy to eat! They weren't too sweet or too creamy, and I love the fluffy pastry.

The DIY Nonya Laksa station! I love the concept 'cause I can choose to omit bean sprouts from my bowl.

Hehe my nephew had refills of the pineapple fried rice!

We had a small dessert corner set-up at our kitchen island by Creme Maison Bakery. It was so pretty *heart-eye emoticonsssss*

It was catered for 25-30 pax and the rest of the desserts were kept in the refrigerator for top-up :)

Everyone's favourite - Salted Caramel Cupcakes. They were moist and sweet, just the way I like them!

My friends were crazy about the Blackforest Dessert Cups so I gave it a try and wow, super rich chocolate cake that keeps you wanting more. *thumbs up*

It was a really fun afternoon having a small group of friends over but boy, the before and after party cleaning-up was mad tiring! Actually no, entertaining guests was just as tiring. After the last guests left, H and I collapsed on the sofa and napped for 2 hours before I woke the both of us up 'cause I was hungry lol. And we heated up a bowl of nonya laksa each, a plate of pineapple fried rice + curry chicken we kept aside for dinner from the catering ;) It was such a good meal!